This is a detailed guide to building a dip station without the need of many tools.

Living in an apartment I do not have the room needed for a home gym. After a lot of thought I came up with this design and dimensions that uses the least amount of wood without any wastage.

This Instructable came as the result of both "need and want". The need for an easy step by step guide to building a dip station to exercise at home and the want I have personally to contribute back to the Instructable community who have helped me a lot throughout the years.

Step 1: List of Materials Required:

Wood:
3 - Lumber 2"X2"X8'
1 - Lumber 1"X3"X8'

80 Screws:
I purchased 2 1/4" drywall screws because they were cheaper than 2" screws at the hardware store. You can use 2" screws if you like.

Wood screws cost nearly double the price of drywall screws so again I went with the cheaper alternative.

Tools:
Hand drill
Drill bits (size depends on the screws used)
Saw
Any type of clamps
Sandpaper
Tape measure

The wood cost me $10 and the screws were about $7.50 with tax.

The benefits from doing dips is priceless!

Step 2: Purchasing the Wood and Cutting It to Size:

It is important to find the straightest pieces of wood you can.

I got 3 pieces of 2"X2"X8' and got them cut at the store.
Two pieces of lumber have to be cut into 3 pieces each.
2 pieces of 36" and 1 of 24" length.

From the third piece of lumber, 3 pieces of 20" have to be cut and the remaining 36" has to be cut into 2 pieces, each 18" long.

Use the picture as a guide to where each piece is used:
Red - 36"
Blue - 20"
Green - 18"
Pink - 24"

Step 3: Gussets:

The gussets are very important because even though the device is strong enough to do dips on without the gussets, it will wobble a lot without them and this can cause injuries to occur over time.

The 1"X3"X8' has to be cut into 10 gussets with an angle of 45° and the shorter side having a length of 3".
An additional 2 gussets have to be cut with the shorter side of length 7.5".
This may seem like a lot but I did have some wood left over.

As you can see in the second picture, I used the 45° guide on my saw to mark the cuts and the chair arms with clamps as my cutting bench.

*If you have some plywood, you could cut gussets out of that.

Step 4: Assembly:

All the pieces need to be assembled according to the picture shown in 'Step 2'. I started with assembling the two side frames and then connecting them with the cross pieces.

I used the dowel construction method where I clamped the pieces together and drilled a hole in them. Then I hammered a dowel in the hole. After that I Dilled guide holes for the screws and screwed the pieces together.
I think this was unnecessary and the screws themselves are strong enough to support everything.

Because the ends of the 2-18" pieces and 1-20" piece (Marked with blue lines) have to be cut at a slight angle, I used an estimated angle of 10°. I was using a hand saw to cut the edges so it didn't matter because the cut is not very accurate. This is more important when using a power saw where the cuts can be more precise.

The offset distance of the pieces from the edge is 4".

Handlebars:
I used a single screw to hold the handle bars in place. I wrapped them with some wash cloths to make the grips which work fine.
I plan on using a lathe (when I can get access to one) to make the handlebars cylindrical and maybe add some grip tape on them.

Step 5: Adding the Gussets:

I used the clamps to hold the gusset in place while I drilled a pilot hole on each end. I then screwed it in place.

I added on all the gussets with one screw on each end, before adding the second screws to all the sides in one go. This made sure the device wouldn't warp because of excess force from any one side being fastened on tight.

The front side (the side without the top cross beam) is given extra support with the use of a second longer gusset. I used 3 screws on each side for more support.

The gussets on the top cross beam are not needed but I added them because I had some leftover wood and it looked cool.

The 2 1/4" screws are a little long and stick out on the opposite side of the gusset. To prevent greeting scraped, I hammered down the pointy ends of all the screws that were sticking out.

Step 6: Time to Get Jacked!

Congratulation you are done! Start working out on your newly built Dip station and prepare yourself for the attention that comes with having some well defined muscles.

My inspiration of the design was this boat hoist pictured above that we use at my workplace.

*Note: I encourage you to use my design to build a dip station for personal use and please feel free to redirect your friends to this page for reference. I do not approve using my design to gain any kind of monetary benefits or claim it to be your design.